A Story of Wind and Birds

 There are paths below the prairie grass you can no longer see.  Sunsets that light them with a gentle prairie breeze.  Birds that sit upon a stalk of golden grass and sing.  

The Nebraska Sandhills are a mystery few have ever seen.  Miles and miles of barb wire and fence posts, crooked now. Worn with sun and winters run that twists the posts to new shapes. Hills dotted with cattle and rusty windmills here and there.  

You look and think that this world is bare without a tree to be seen.  Surely no human has ever lived here, but then you'd miss the stories that all but disappear. Stories that only the wind has seen whispered on the lives that have disappeared.  Each pasture once held a family now the pastures carry the names of the families that were and are no more.   

I stand on these trails and remember...

An old cowboy, his hat of straw clutched between his hands.  Gnarled hands, wrinkled eyes that have faded blue.  White stubble chin and a gentle smile that tells of tales untold.  He stands tall listening to all the voices on the wind. Voices of past and present, they whisper their tales to souls.  A bird sings long, the bird sings short he reaches for my hand.  A chubby grasp with peanut butter stuck upon its tips, jelly stains and marker lines and bright eyes looking up to watch her grandpa clap his hat back upon his head.  

He pulls the old car over on the side of a dirt road and we get out and walk.  He tells me of the birds,  their names, how they live and each song they sing he knows,.  The wind whispers of the trails he walked to fill him with this knowledge.  I can almost hear the old trapper who taught him their songs telling the tale of my grandpa. 

"He was a wee lad with an Irish Dad who loved him more than anything." the trapper would say.  "His mum's dad was smuggled out of Austria in a pickle barrel ... he was a mean SOB...and so was his daughter, but not her son little Coote" as he was called back then "Coote wasn't much for learnin.  I heard about his plight one day getting supplies at the general store. I was friends' with his Da a good big Irish man." The trapper's eyes looked distant as he spit his wad into the sod, telling the wind his story.  "Rumor was the school teacher was beating little Coote bloody on a pretty regular basis when he couldn't read the words right. Those kids' Da was out riding with the herd he didn't know what was going on and his Ma didn't care what happened to him.  Luckily one of the neighbors found out what was happening and he threatened the teacher to an inch of her life.  But little Coote still didn't like school and now the teacher just refused to teach him.  His older sister Mary with her fiery red hair tried to help him as best she could, but little Coote preferred to play as most boys do.  

I caught sight of the two walking from their dug out in the side of the hill to school.  They didn't have shoes, their ma couldn't afford it.  No one knew when their Da would return from trailing the cattle "The trappers' eyes grew distant as though he could see their mother's red curls escaping her bun as she chased their little blonde sister Kathy.  Perhaps he had seen her begging the neighbors for some eggs and food.  The worry and care of watching her children starve.  Maybe it was remembering his own time living in a dug out, constant dirt and bugs crawling.  A snake dropping in to eat every now and then.  He shook his head and the wind rustled the hair of his beard for more tales.

"Mary," he called walking up behind them. Scruffy beard under his coon skin hat and blood stained dirty clothes.  Mary walked faster and he called again "Mary, I have a question for you."

Mary kept her nose high and her bobbed red hair swayed faster as she picked up her pace, eyes straight ahead.  Her 2nd grader legs walking as fast as they could. "Merny," The blonde haired  little boy lisped struggling to keep up her pace "I think that man wants to talk to us."

"SHHH!!"She gave him a sharp look her freckles trying to jump off her nose like daggers. "We have to get to school, NO dilly dallying!"

"Excuse me Mary" The trapper got closer "I just spoke with your mother and I have a question for your little brother there." 

"Merny! stop I want to hearw what he has to say! He is a fwriend of Da's, I wemember him from the last time he was here! He told me a story of a badger he westled."

"Oh all right." Merny sighed.  "What do you want Mister? And you better make it fast?"

"Weel. I was thinking that young Coote their has plenty of time for book learning later.  Right now he could be learning to trap with me, and I can split what we make from the pelts with your family. I spoke with your Ma and she said I needed to ask the wee lad."

Mary thought the trapper looked like a badger himself with streaks of white in his black beard.  Even the wind seemed to hold its breathe waiting to hear what she would say.  Her little 7 year old hand gripped Coote's hand even tighter, but then she looked into his eyes and her heart broke with the hope she saw in her littler brother. Hope to be free and no longer beaten, to learn from the school of life instead of the text books she adored.  For a moment she remembered the horrible pain of seeing the teacher beat him, he had tried so hard. She had even helped him with his school, but it hadn't mattered.  

"Oh all right. But you both best be home by sunset and you still have to work on your letters each day with me!" She scolded him before turning with both hands on her hips to the trapper.  She barely came up to his waist but it was as if she towered above him, her little hand reaching to fearlessly thumped his chest but barely tapped above his belly button "And if any thing happens to my brother, my Da will make short work of you, so you better be careful!"

The Old trapper took his hat and crushed it to his chest, trying to hold back a smile, "Yes Miss Mary, as you say."

"Thank you Merny! and I will be good and pwactice my Wetters with you! Cwoss my heart!"

"See that you do."  And Mary bounced off to school, the wind dancing through the dust at her feet and making her red hair a wild mess.  

Trapper looked at little Coote and with out saying a word took off for the prairie to trap the wind and some wild game.  Little Coote reached up and took his hand,  the trapper's old heart melted.  They walked through grass and cotton wood trees
down to the North Platte River.  Often they sat in silence listening for the tales the wind had to tell, checking lines and learning the songs of the birds.  But they always made it back for dinner.  

"Come on little one," Said my Grandpa Coote swinging me up into his arms. I could see his little self blowing away in the clouds, adventuring with the trapper.  Catching frogs and learning how to read the wild.  "The birds will be here tomorrow, but your Grandma's dinner has to be eaten hot."

"I love you Grandpa," and I leaned in to kiss his cheek as he carried me back to the car, the setting sun turning the world golden. 

"Do you want to drive?" I nodded yes and climbed on his lap so I could steer.  The meadowlarks singing to us all the way home for dinner.